


And Nothing Without Cost

by glimmerglanger



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Prompt: Tear-Stained, Results of Magic Use, Whumptober 2019, post season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 01:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: It felt good to get out of the little hospital where Soren had fully believed he would be spending the rest of his life, unmoving. Walking - such a simple activity, he’d always taken it for granted - buoyed his spirits, even if he wasn’t quite so glad aboutwherethey were walking to.He managed to convince Claudia, in the end, that they ought to take a longer path home.





	And Nothing Without Cost

It felt good to get out of the little hospital where Soren had fully believed he would be spending the rest of his life, unmoving. Walking - such a simple activity, he’d always taken it for granted - buoyed his spirits, even if he wasn’t quite so glad about _where_ they were walking to.

Claudia made a good argument about bringing along their paltry present, as a balm to erase the sting of their failures. But Soren had more experience than she did with disappointing their father. He wasn’t sure, entirely, that they’d be forgiven. Not at all.

He managed to convince Claudia, in the end, that they ought to take a longer path home. She gave in when he started talking about how good it felt to stretch his legs, smiling a bit, though she seemed to lack his enthusiasm.

She grew tired early in the day, slowing down further and further until Soren realized they needed to make camp. They’d barely covered any ground, really. They’d gotten no closer to where they intended to go, to their father, to the consequences for their failures, due to Soren’s wayward path into the hills.

He made a campfire while she looked around at… something that she found interesting. He had to remind her to eat, and she stared down at the dried jerky and berries with something terrible in her expression for a moment, before he nudged her in the side.

Their campfire conversation was one-sided, notably so. Soren paused in the middle of telling a hilarious story about how he’d been sure his toes were itchy, back in the hospital, even though he couldn’t feel them, when he realized that Claudia was slumped back against a tree, her head leaning down to her shoulder, her eyes closed.

“Well,” he said, standing, brushing off his breeches. “I guess I’ll just have to tell you in the morning.”

He spread out her bedroll and leaned her over onto it. She made a little protesting noise, but didn’t wake up. Her new shock of white hair spread across the blanket, a little testament that she had done… something, to fix him. Something that reached into her and changed her.

Soren shiverd and covered her up with a blanket. It was getting nippy at night. He built up the fire a little higher and paced around their camp, not ready to lie down. He wasn’t sure he’d ever want to sprawl out on his back, ever again.

#

Soren was still awake - running through some basic forms with his sword, in fact - when Claudia started stirring around. He tucked his sword behind his back, sure he was about to be chided for making too much noise. Claudia’d never appreciated having her sleep disturbed.

The complaints never came. She didn’t wake up. She curled on her bedroll, instead, her expression twisting up, looking odd in the flickering firelight. She made a sound, a gasp that turned into a hitching sob.

He stood, frozen for a moment, watching her weep in her sleep, sobs growing louder and more violent as he watched.

He sheathed the sword when it became obvious the strange fit wasn’t going to just pass. He crossed around the fire and knelt, awkward, near her head. “Claudia,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. She shook, under his touch. He rocked her back and forth. “Claudia, wake up.”

She jerked awake, all at once, eyes snapping open. She was still crying, cheeks tear-stained as she blinked up at him, asking, “What--?”

“You were having a bad dream,” he said, an uncomfortable itch between his shoulder blades as she shifted, sitting, hands going to her face to rub away the tears. She stared at her fingers afterwards, blankly.

“A bad dream?” She looked over at him, wet-cheeked, eyes rimmed in red. Her breath was still hitching. Strands of white hair stuck to her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he said. It wasn’t a surprise, was it? Not after everything they’d seen in the last few days. He had bad dreams, sometimes, too. But he couldn’t stir his tongue to say that. The admission stuck in his throat. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

“I should keep watch,” she said, scrubbing at her face some more. “You need to sleep, too.”

“I’ll be okay tonight.” He patted at her shoulder and stood. He didn’t want to sleep. And she looked like she needed it. And it was almost dawn, anyway. “Get some rest.” She didn’t argue it. He was beginning to dislike how little she’d argued anything, since they left the hospital. 

He said, quietly, once she’d settled down again, “Sweet dreams.”

#

They set off again in the morning, through wild country without a set path for them to follow. They made slow progress, both because Claudia could only travel so fast and because they kept reaching natural barriers that forced them to turn around and go back, looking for another way.

But it was nice, beneath the trees, with only birdsong around them and with plenty of fresh air to breathe. It was good to stretch his legs, to scramble up a tree to look ahead, feeling all his limbs working the way they ought to.

They passed pleasant days there. Mostly pleasant days. It was just that he couldn’t help but noticing, as time moved on, that Claudia wasn’t… quite right. He had to remind her to eat, or she’d just get up from her bedroll and start breaking camp. He had to prompt her to drink, offering her water throughout the day.

It was like she didn’t notice her body, not at all, consumed with whatever quiet thoughts kept her occupied as they walked.

And then there was the dreams, or the nightmares, or whatever. They kept arriving, even waking Soren, when he finally lost the battle with exhaustion and leaned back against a tree, sitting, to sleep.

He blinked over at her, groggy with exhaustion, watching her mouth contort as she wept, her eyes closed. He almost nudged her with his boot. Based on past experience, she’d just wake up, confused, and then go back to sleep.

But.

But he was tired enough to think about just why she was having the nightmares. It was easy to write it off as a result of their fight with the dragon. Or even worries about what their father would say, when they returned as failures. Those explanations presented themselves, but so, too, did the streak of white in her hair.

She hadn’t been herself since she gave him back the ability to walk, since she fixed him.

She’d done something to damage herself. And Claudia was smart, bright. She must’ve known before she did it. But she’d repaired him anyway. It was… It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him, but ‘nice’ felt like a small, sorry word to describe it.

He couldn’t think of a single other person in the world who would have saved him. Not even if the treatment came at no cost. His father… well. Soren knew what his father thought of him. He’d always been a disappointment. Not smart or clever like Claudia. Their mother had left them both behind, discarded like so much trash. None of the other guards cared one way or another about him….

There was just Claudia. The only person in the world who would have saved him. The only person in the world who loved him. It was a strange, heady feeling to realize that someone cared about him at all.

And she was crying, weeping in her sleep, her shoulders heaving with the force of it as she made terrible, choked animal sounds in the back of her throat.

Soren shifted away from the tree, leaning over her, unsure how to help, the way he had been every night since they left the hospital. He touched her shoulder, shaking her, and she jerked to wakefulness, a cry cut off in her throat.

“Sh,” he said, “it’s okay, you were having a bad dream again.” 

She continued to weep. He felt her trembling and wondered if she were cold. Cold on the inside, in her head, maybe. He wanted to stop it for her, to keep the dreams away, and shifted them around, holding her, though they had not embraced, really, since they were children.

She said, head tucked under his chin, where she fit easily, so easily it felt like proof that he’d made the right choice to offer her some comfort, “I don’t--I don’t know why I’m crying.” 

“That’s alright,” he told her, because she’d saved him, and he was going to make it okay, somehow. That was only fair. He wiped at the tears on her cheeks, trying to smooth them all away.

“I’m sorry I keep waking you up.” Her voice was already getting slow again. The trembles in her back were going away. Her breathing evened out. 

“I don’t mind,” he said, and she sighed, and fell into sleep again.

He stayed awake for a long time, thinking.


End file.
